People Who Walk In Darkness (Inspector Rostnikov)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Do I have to go back to school?”

  “No,” said Rostnikov. “You can eat cookies and drink beer and use bad words all day. You have my permission.”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  She was smiling now.

  “Well, no.”

  “Can I see your wooden leg?”

  She was standing in front of his chair.

  “If you show it to her,” said Boris, “you will have to show it to all of them.”

  Rostnikov leaned forward awkwardly in his chair and pulled up the cuff of his left pant leg. The girl stared seriously and said, “Does it hurt?”

  “No, we are becoming friends.”

  “Friends with a wooden leg?”

  “It is plastic and metal.”

  “I see,” said the girl, starting on her third cookie. “Friends? You talk to it?”

  “Sometimes, but I was friendlier with my bad leg when I still had it, but if I wish I can always visit it.”

  “Your leg? Where is it?”

  “In a laboratory in a lower basement of police headquarters in Moscow where I have my office.”

  “You are making a joke,” she said, tilting her head to one side.

  “No,” said Rostnikov seriously. “It is best to keep old friends nearby, when possible.”

  Rostnikov let down his pant leg and Boris shuffled behind him.

  “Can I tell my friends that you talk to your leg?”

  “You have my permission.”

  “Thank you,” she said and left the room.

  Emil Karpo stepped in.

  “Would you like a cookie, Emil Karpo?” Rostnikov asked.

  “I do not eat cookies,” said Karpo, who was dressed in his customary black.

  Rostnikov knew his associate’s diet quite well, but it did not stop him from an occasional foray into the hope of temptation. Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov firmly believed that the regular consumption of cookies was essential to the well-being of every reasonable Russian. Rostnikov ate a cookie.

  “The little girl who just left here has a grandfather,” Rostnikov said. “He cleans guns in preparation for an invasion by the Japanese. I would like you to talk to him about the places in the mine too large for all but little girls to crawl into. I should like to know where they are.”

  “There are not any such places,” said Boris emphatically.

  “But there is a ghost?” asked Rostnikov.

  “The ghost is real, but do not tell anyone I said so. The small caves are not real, and you can tell anyone you like that I said so,” said Boris.

  “Enlightening,” said Karpo.

  “Hidden places, Emil Karpo. Hidden places,” said Rostnikov.

  Let the Moscow detectives find the covered cave, he thought. I want no more of it. I want only for the killing to end. I will kill no more.

  But it makes no difference. I am surely going to be caught if I do something . . . Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov will eventually figure it out. The question is, “How long is eventually?”

  His choices were still narrow. He could gather everything he could get into a suitcase and make some excuse to be on the next plane out of Devochka. He had plenty of excuses open to him for short-term visits to Moscow. In Moscow he could disappear, and with the help of St. James he could leave Russia. But he was not certain that St. James would help him. His value lay in staying where he was, and the truth was that he did not want to leave. His life was here.

  Even if St. James made him rich, it would not compensate for what he would have to give up. St. James would probably want the two detectives killed. He would have to kill them. Then what? More policemen? Maybe the next ones would not be so smart, or maybe they would and they would be looking for a ghost who had killed two policemen. It was not a good situation.

  He made a decision. If either or both of the policemen decided to go into the mine, they would get a visit from the ghost girl and they would not leave the mine alive.

  “So?” asked Iosef Rostnikov, holding the phone close to his ear to mask the sound of a building across the street being demolished by a huge wrecking ball.

  He had watched the demolition for half an hour before making the call. There was something fascinating and satisfying in the sight of the massive ball swinging widely and then making an almost grateful loop into what remained of the wall.

  Porfiry Petrovich lay in the bed fully clothed sans the leg, which kept him company within reach, on a chair. From the bed he could look through the window at a formation of clouds that looked like a laughing man reclining.

  “They don’t have the diamonds,” Rostnikov said, watching the cloud slowly morph into something else he could not yet identify.

  “They could have them and plan to simply give the people who have the hostage African the fake diamonds,” said Iosef.

  “Then they would not value the hostage’s life very highly.”

  “But the kidnappers probably plan to kill him anyway,” said Iosef. “They are likely to know that.”

  “There is little doubt of that. So perhaps your two Botswanans plan to start a small war at the War Memorial in the hope of saving their friend.”

  “Yes, I agree,” said Iosef. “And you suggest?”

  “Caution and backup. How is Zelach?”

  “A man will be sure to meet at least once in his life something that is unlike anything he had happened to see before.”

  “Chekov?”

  “Gogol,” said Iosef. “Zelach is that thing.”

  “Be careful,” said Porfiry Petrovich.

  “I will be. Any other advice?”

  “Marry Elena if she will still have you. You asked for my advice.”

  “I did,” Iosef said. “Anything else I should know?”

  “You have an uncle.”

  “An uncle?”

  “He is here in Siberia.”

  “What better place for an uncle,” Iosef said, knowing his father’s sense of humor.

  “You have cousins too. I will tell you more when I see you. Perhaps I can persuade him to visit Moscow if I do not have to arrest him for murder.”

  “He is a suspect, this uncle?”

  “A suspect with definite credentials. Let us talk again after the war at the War Memorial.”

  Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov hung up and reached awkwardly to place the phone back in its cradle on the night table.

  He forced himself up, letting his leg hang over the side of the bed. He had a date with Viktor Panin to lift weights. Panin was also a suspect. There were few who were not. After lifting and showering, Rostnikov would meet with more little girls and Yevgeniy Zuyev, the mayor of Devochka, another suspect. The total number of suspects in the mining town was two hundred eleven men, two hundred eighteen women, and one hundred sixty-one school-age boys and girls. Somehow Rostnikov, who was slowly putting on his favorite gray sweatsuit, did not believe he would have to talk to all these people.

  Speaking softly to his artificial leg, he put it on and decided he would wait for Emil Karpo’s report on the grandfather who was preparing for invasion by the forces of Nippon.

  It was not the girl Lillita’s grandfather, Karpo discovered. It was her great-grandfather, Gennadi Ivanov. He was indeed alone in a small room into which he welcomed Karpo after the detective identified himself.

  Karpo estimated that the man was at least ninety years old. He was surprisingly erect and tall, but so thin that he had to constantly adjust the thick suspenders over his sloping shoulders.

  There was a bed in a corner, a dresser, and a large table cluttered with the exposed insides of a rifle. Along one wall was a rack of rifles and a case of handguns behind glass doors.

  “No ammunition,” said the old man, offering a chair.

  He sat on a bench that ran the length of the table.

  “I will be given the ammunition when the Japanese come,” he said. “At least that is what they tell me, have been telling me for tens of years. They do not believe the attack is coming. Their
fathers did not believe. I wish they were right, but they are not. They were repulsed at Vladivostok by sea and in Korea by land in 1904. My father fought them off.”

  The old man wore a well trimmed white beard and a matching head of hair. He eyed the still-standing detective and made a decision.

  “I know where they keep the ammunition. I can just walk over to Fedya Rostnikov’s office, shoot the lock off, and arm forty men.”

  “But you have no ammunition to shoot the lock off,” said Karpo.

  The old man smiled knowingly, showing a mouth that had long since lost most of its teeth.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps. Do you have any idea what this is?” he asked, pointing at the dismantled weapon on the table in front of him.

  “A Mosin-Nagent rifle,” said Karpo. “It fires a 7.62 × 54 rimmed cartridge. Five shot bolt action.”

  “Can hit a Japanese soldier at five hundred yards,” said the old man. “This one was used in the war against Finland. Those Finns could fight. Better than the Japanese.”

  He picked up a small metal part from the table and squinted at it as he held it up.

  “I am here to talk about the mine,” said Karpo.

  “Talk.”

  “There are hidden caves in the mine. Small caves that children can crawl through.”

  “Is that a question?” asked the old man.

  “It is.”

  “Yes there are,” Ivanov said, still looking at the small part as if it held a secret.

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “Three of them, but they have all been covered by collapsing walls. Children were killed. One ghost came from the crushed rocks and bits of diamond, the little girl with the lantern.”

  “You believe in the ghost girl?”

  “I saw her twice.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t remember. I was a young man. It was just before we were warned for the first time that the Japanese might be on the way.”

  “You don’t like the Japanese,” said Karpo.

  “I like the Japanese very much,” said Ivanov, trying to take his eyes from the little machined part. “Very smart. Women are pretty. Children are beautiful. I just do not want them to take over all of Russia and turn us into Buddhists and slaves.”

  “Could you draw me a map of where the small caves are?”

  “No one believes me about the caves. Why do you?”

  “I did not say I believe you,” said Karpo. “Nor do I not believe you.”

  “I’ll draw it in exchange for a bullet for this gun,” the old man said.

  “You shall have it,” said Karpo, reasonably confident he could provide the man with a bullet that would be guaranteed not to work or explode the gun in his hands.

  “If I were not too old, I would take you to the caves,” the old man said.

  “I understand. There is a man named Boris who takes people into the mine. Could he find the caves using your map?”

  “Boris? Stupid boy, but he knows the mine. Yes, he can do it. Are you going in there?”

  “I think so.”

  “Watch out for the ghost girl. If you hear her sing and you see her, your chances of being found dead are very good.”

  “It is a risk I will take.”

  “My bullet.”

  “I will get it for you.”

  “When is he coming home?” asked Nina.

  Since her sister was two years older, Nina expected Laura to have answers to all of her questions, and she usually did.

  “Soon,” said Laura.

  The girls were facing each other under the blanket on the makeshift bed on the floor. They were whispering in the darkness punctuated only by the light from the lampposts beyond the kitchen window.

  “What is soon?”

  “Three days,” Laura said with confidence and no certain knowledge.

  “What is he doing? Is he shooting someone bad?”

  “No. The creepy man does the killing.”

  “I like him,” said Nina. “I do not think he is creepy.”

  “I do not think he is either, but other people do.”

  “Sarah and Grandmother Galina?”

  “I do not know.”

  “I shall ask them. Will Porfiry Petrovich bring us anything from Siberia?”

  “There is nothing to bring from Siberia,” said Laura. “There is nothing there but snow and reindeer.”

  “When he comes back, he will fix Mrs. Dudenya’s pipes.”

  “Yes,” said Laura. “When I grow up, I shall be a plumber.”

  “When I grow up,” said Nina, “I will be a policeman.”

  “Here is the list,” said Fyodor Rostnikov, handing a printed sheet to Porfiry Petrovich.

  They were seated on white folding chairs outside the apartment complex facing the mine, which was closed. It was a crime scene.

  Porfiry Petrovich wore his lined overcoat and a black wool watch cap. Fyodor Andreiovich wore a dark blue pea coat and a black fur hat. In the summer, the temperature could reach ninety degrees Fahrenheit for a few days, but in the winter, which was approaching, the temperature averaged negative fifty-six degrees Fahrenheit. At the moment the temperature hovered somewhere around thirty degrees Fahrenheit, which meant that they both considered this a balmy day, nearly perfect for enjoying the afternoon.

  Beyond the thick wall of trees that stretched as far to the left and right as Rostnikov could see were mountains and the Vitim River and Lake Baykal, the world’s deepest lake. The city of Irkutsk was somewhere out there.

  Porfiry Petrovich looked down at the short list of names Fyodor had given him. They were the names of all senior employees of the mining company who were allowed to enter the mine during the six-hour off shift, which was always between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. In addition to the Devochka Council members, there were two resident mining engineers. It was a short list made even shorter by the murder of board member Anatoliy Lebedev.

  “As you will see if you go to the mine . . .”

  “I will go to the mine,” said Porfiry Petrovich.

  “As you will see,” Fyodor went on, “there is a steel night fence which covers the only mine entrance. The door in the fence can only be opened with key cards.”

  Fyodor reached into the pocket of his jacket and extracted two large naval oranges. He handed one to Porfiry Petrovich who nodded his thanks.

  “And who provides these cards?” Rostnikov asked as he carefully began to peel the orange. It was firm and ripe. He brought it to his nose to smell. The world was suddenly engulfed in an orange miasma.

  “I do,” said Fyodor.

  “And where were you on the shifts when the Canadian and Lebedev were killed?”

  Fyodor allowed himself a knowing, if small, smile.

  “Home, which, you will see when you come for dinner tonight, is over there: Building Two, ground floor. My children were sleeping. My wife and I went to bed just before midnight. I awoke in the morning at five-thirty as I always do.”

  “And your wife is a light sleeper?” asked Rostnikov.

  This time Fyodor did allow himself a laugh, almost choking as he said, “She sleeps a sleep that would challenge a roomful of narcoleptics. Nothing wakes her.”

  Both men had a lap of orange peels and a ready orb of fruit. They had both separated the oranges into segments and were eating slowly.

  “So I am the prime suspect?”

  “One of several,” said Porfiry Petrovich, holding up the list and letting his eyes follow the slow walk of a man on the path to the mine.

  The list was now covered with sticky fingertip tabs of orange. When he called Sarah later, he would tell her of the nearly perfect orange he had eaten in Siberia.

  “During Lebedev’s murder, I will now confess, I was with the person I thought might be the murderer of the Canadian,” Fyodor said after a long pause. “I engaged him in conversation, tried to get him drunk, and wasted a night. It was I who got drunk.”

  “His name?”

  “
Your weight lifting partner Viktor Panin. I did not go to the mine. You can ask Viktor.”

  “And Viktor did not go to the mine?” said Porfiry Petrovich.

  “He didn’t even stop once to piss. The man must have a bladder as big as the giant Tunguska meteor hole near Podkamennaya. I do not know if he killed the Canadian, but he definitely did not kill poor Lebedev. We are having shashlyk for dinner in your honor. Come hungry.”

  It was Porfiry Petrovich’s turn to smile.

  “I shall arrive with a suitable appetite.”

  “Igor Sturnicki, one of the two engineers on your list, was in Barnaul visiting relatives. The other engineer, Mikhail Kline, was in the hospital with a broken leg.”

  “Could he walk on the leg?”

  “It was and is in a cast from hip to ankle. It would be difficult to hobble to and into the mine to hide and commit a murder.”

  “You are sure the leg is broken?”

  “A mine truck tipped on it. He will walk with a limp when he does walk again, which may not be for a long time.”

  “That leaves the rest of the council members,” said Porfiry Petrovich.

  “Yes. As you see, there are three more, our Chairman Yevgeniy Zuyev . . .”

  Rostnikov remembered the thin, nervous man whose right eye seemed to wander while the left was fixed firmly on whatever object it was aimed toward.

  “Magda Kaminskaya . . .”

  Who, Rostnikov recalled, was short and overweight, with a definite wheezing problem.

  “And Stepan Orlov . . .”

  The image of a broad-shouldered man in need of a shave came to mind.

  “Stepan, I’m afraid, is my candidate,” said Fyodor.

  “Why?”

  “By a process of elimination,” Fyodor said. “There is no one left to consider.”

  “Why have I not spoken to Stepan Orlov?”

  “Because he has locked himself in his laboratory and put up a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.”

  “He does this often?”

  “I have known him to do it.”

  “And what does he do in the laboratory?” asked Porfiry Petrovich.

  “He is a microbiologist. He is supposed to be examining all evidence of insects, rats, and odd microbial-level life in the mines.”

  “And what has he found?”